


It Happens In Boston

by Golden_Ticket



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: DTR, Defining the Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Having the talk, boston worlds, lots of processing with a touch of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 21:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14679765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Ticket/pseuds/Golden_Ticket
Summary: It happens in Boston, but it starts before that.***An exploration of the transition going from friends to lovers in four parts. Set in 2016.





	It Happens In Boston

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so the Happy Chat encouraged me to post this as one big monster one-shot, thus, you get this wall of text which I hope you enjoy and leave me your thoughts in the end.
> 
> I stole two things in this from my best friend/room mate and I's experiences/traditions, which is a) the goodnight ritual, the back end of that inspired by the movie "Strange Magic", you'll know when you get there (and yes, we say that to each other every night before we go to bed) and b) the pre-cooking noodles for a casserole argument, we've had that years ago and it wasn't pretty (there were tears because I ended up being really mean about the half-raw noodles..because he didn't pre-cook them as one should...)
> 
> This entire fic came about because I thought it was so cute how Scott said in the 2nd PJ Kwon interview in Boston that Tessa likes to play "Inside The Actor's Studio" with him and he referenced a question of hers as "What's your favourite sound", this paired with the fact that Tessa mentioned the laugh-cry-thing a day earlier during the Worlds 2016 broadcast like it was fresh on her mind (and we now heard from Scott that that's his actual favourite sound!), gave me the idea that the question must've been asked and answered between them in the lead-up to Worlds 16 some time...hence this fic happening to deal with all the feels that caused.
> 
> This is me also trying to stick close to the timeline and actual interviews, things we have seen but obviously, it's all speculation and head canons. Thank you so much if you read to the end and review <3
> 
> I am eternally grateful for the lovely thatonekimgirl for her beta-superpowers and editing this for me, literal life-saver!!! Thank you so so much!!!

**PART I**

 

Scott would always roll his eyes every time they’re on a longer drive and Tessa gets bored of his music, turns it down, and announces that they should play some more “Inside the Actors Studio,” which is basically her interviewing him on whatever random thing she can think of. He makes a big show of being exasperated, groaning and huffing, but really, he fucking loves it. He loves finding out what questions she has for him, loves how after all this time and being the one person in the world who practically knows everything about him, she’s still curious for more, still rakes her brain for menial and silly little things to ask him about. Those times when she inevitably repeats herself, he never points it out, lest she just stop one day, thinking she’s covered every possible avenue (even if she had, he’d answer everything a thousand times, just to keep her going, really).

 

Sometimes, like now that they’re driving back from Hamilton to London after he went to see the Garth Brooks concert with some friends and she went out for drinks with some of hers, her little impromptu interviews are a blessing. It’s really late and the roads aren’t very accommodating and so it’s good that she keeps him occupied and alert as he drives. Tonight, she has also brought in reinforcements in the form of a quick google search. She had announced that after asking him three questions about the concert and then coming up blank: “I’m gonna google for some fun ones, I can’t think of anything myself right now.”

 

“You’re out of form, Virtch, what’s up?” He asks her, grinning.  
“I know, I know,” she says, almost sheepish and he has a very pressing, very strong urge to put his hand on her knee but somehow, he refrains from it. He’s not particularly keen on investigating exactly why it has recently gotten daunting to touch her. Well, maybe not daunting but...loaded. Meaningful, scary, maybe? Promising? Bigger, somehow?

 _Not the time, Moir,_ he tells himself. He’ll deal with it. Just not tonight.

 

“Okay, wait,” Tessa says, “I think I’ve found some fun ones. You ready?”

“Whenever you are, kiddo,” he tells her, glancing over to her in the passenger seat.

“What fictional place would you most like to go to?” She reads from her phone and then looks at him expectantly.

“Oh God,” he sighs. “You know I have no idea about that stuff, that’s your forté. I don’t know, maybe that Hungry Games city?”

“What?” She sounds positively scandalized. “The Capitol? That’s a terrible place. Also it’s the _Hunger_ Games.”

“But they’re so fashion-forward there, right?” He muses. “ _You’d_ have to like it then.”

“Not under those circumstances,” she says. “It’s really high time we watched that together so you know what you’re talking about.”

“I’d like that,” he says. Not that they really have time to watch a whole lot of stuff these days with getting back into training and all. Or like he particularly cared for the movie. But he’s always game for watching something with her, doing _anything_ with her, really.

 

“Anyway, you should be good in the Shire,” Tessa decides. “Lord of the Rings-style, nice and cozy...after the whole ring thing is over of course.”

“Are you calling me a hobbit?” He asks, dramatically. “I’m not _that_ short, you know.”

She giggles, which was what he wanted and so he listens to her next question with a self-satisfied smirk. “What job would you be terrible at?”

“Oooh, that’s a good one,” he starts. “How much time do you have?”

“Scott,” she admonishes, ever so displeased with his self-deprecating humour.

“Well, if I _have_ to pick one, probably something where I have to sit around all day and don’t get to move at all,” he says. “So any office job, probably, eh?”

 

It’s funny how he asks her to verify with his answer, knowing him better than he knows himself and all, but she agrees easily and moves on to the next question she finds after a while of scrolling on her phone. “I like this one...when was the last time you climbed a tree?”

“Last time I climbed a tree? Wow...maybe the last time I got close enough to a tree to climb one? Do lamp posts count?” She laughs, likely because he kind of does that a lot, climb lampposts, for whatever reason.

“I think they do.”

“Then two weeks ago,” he says with confidence, eliciting more laughter and he thinks maybe that’s another big reason why he secretly likes this game so much–he gets to make her laugh a lot.

 

“Moving on. So, Mister Scott Moir, what age do you wish you could permanently be?” She asks and he can see from the corner of his eye that she has now turned fully towards him.

“Thirty-two,” he says, not missing a beat.

“You’re not even thirty,” she says on a startled laugh. “Why thirty-two?”

“Because I imagine that’ll be a good age for me,” he says. “I almost have my shit together now, so by then I might have it fully together. Plus, I’ll have another Olympic Gold medal–”

“Certainly,” she cuts in and he can hear the grin in her voice.

“I’ll have...I don’t know, maybe settled down...or something,” he goes on and then for some reason feels like he has to make a joke, so he does. “And by then we’ll surely have hoverboards, so it would be just the perfect time, I think.”

“Fair enough,” she says and he can feel her eyes on him quizzically for a second, before she turns her attention back to her phone. “What have you only recently formed an opinion about?”

“Hmm, wine probably?” He muses. “I never used to care what I was drinking if we’re honest but since you’ve started dragging me to all these fancy events, I kinda know what to ask for. So, yeah. Wine. What about you?”

 

This is technically against the rules (because Tessa is the interviewer and he’s not supposed to ask her questions back) but she lets him have this one. Probably because she would really like to mull over it for a second. Usually Tessa has an opinion on just about everything so it’s an interesting angle.

“Oh, I know,” she says and sounds excited. “Your hair getting longer.”

“Is it?” He asks, running a hand through his locks because he hasn’t thought about his hair for a long time now, he just realises. “And you have an opinion on that? ...Uh, dumb question, it’s you, so of course you do.”

She chuckles but won’t offer her take on it until he asks her to, so he does.

“I like it,” she tells him then. “A lot. I think you can let it grow out a bit, I think it would look really handsome.”

“Handsome?” He tries to remember if she has ever called him that to his face and is honestly not sure that she has.

“Yeah,” she says simply and he tries to keep his stomach from flipping while she goes hunting for another question. He really needs to get it together now.

 _No distractions,_ he reminds himself. _No more funny business with T, that was the deal._

 

“What country do you never wanna go back to?” She asks him and answers “Russia” for him the same time he does and they laugh. He’s infinitely glad that by now, they can.

“Yeah, that was too easy,” she says. “What about this: If you woke up from a hundred year cryogenically frozen sleep, what would your first question be?”

Scott thinks about that for a second, trying to come up with something that isn’t ‘Where is Tessa?’ and lands on: “Have the Leafs finally won the cup?”

She rewards him with a hollering laugh and props her feet on the dashboard. If this was his car, he would protest, but it’s hers so he lets her do as she pleases. If she wants it to be all dirty, she can have that.

 

“What’s something you like to do the old-fashioned way?” She asks next.

“Hmmm...good question. First date, maybe?” He says and then elaborates. “Pick her up with flowers, take her to dinner, split desert, pay for it even if she argues, take a stroll, kiss goodnight at the door, leave and call the next day to say it was a great night…”

“That’s nice,” she hums and then grins. “Now I’m kinda sad that _we’ll_ never have a first date.”

“Well, technically…,” he starts but she cuts him off.

“That was _not_ a date,” she says resolutely. “That was two friends hanging out originally and by the end of it you certainly didn’t kiss me goodnight and _leave._ Anyways, first time doesn’t count as first date.”

“We could try a re-do?” He offers on a smirk (also infinitely glad that they can laugh about _this_ too, nowadays).

“Eight years after the fact?” She grunts and laughs. “That’s not how it works.”

“Worth a try,” he shrugs and joins in in her chuckle.

 

“So, next one: What do you consider your best find?”

“Come on, T,” he huffs immediately after the words have left her lips. “You want me to say you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, feigning innocence.

“Well, it was,” he tells her. “But I might just come up with something else, still.”

“No, you have to tell the truth,” she reminds him, grinning.

“Well then, I consider my best find to be Tessa Virtue.” He mock-grumbles. “Happy?”

“Yes,” she affirms. “Oooh, last one before the spitfire round?”

“I _hate_ the spitfire round,” he complains, mostly because he’s impulsive and spitfire questions have a tendency to overwhelm him which mostly ends up in him sharing truth bombs he’s not always ready to have go off.

“Shh, don’t be a baby,” she teases. “What are you most looking forward to in the next ten years.”

 

Yeah, there’s no way he can answer that. Not fully, not when right now he can’t deal with the unbidden images that flood his head at the question...of the two of them on the podium in Korea, of him kissing her, of her laughing, then crying as she looks down at him while he puts a ring on her finger, of her in a wedding dress, of her belly round and beautiful with his child, of a house and a dog and a little girl that looks just like her. That’s nothing he can or should unpack right now; it’s not even the sure future, technically speaking, so he can’t really look forward to it. None of this is promised, none of this is even something he should be picturing, let alone want right now, possibly ever. They haven’t specified for how long the ‘No Funny Business’ rule will apply. So he can’t tell her how he does think about it. In great detail, apparently.

“Those hoverboards,” he replies instead, before he can say something stupid like: ‘I mostly look forward to the chance of maybe building a life with you.’

 

She laughs like it was a bad joke and she’s just humoring him (even though he could’ve done _way_ worse) and then she holds her phone higher to zoom in on her screen. She’s gearing up for the spitfire, so he should definitely do that too.

“Ready now?” She asks.

“No,” he tells her but she won’t let him off the hook, so Scott tries his best to switch into competition mode and not say anything stupid.

 

“Are you afraid of heights?” She starts.

“No.”

“Last time you cried?”

“Saturday. Just a little. At sunset. Feeling nostalgic.”

“Oddly specific. Moving on,” she says with her head tilted, talking fast. “Favourite animal?”

“No idea, yours are elephants,” he says equally as fast. “Dogs, probably.”

“Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee. You?”

“Yes,” she says. “Last time you were really truly sad?”

“Don’t remember,” he says. “Last year?”

“Last time you were really truly happy?”

“Right now, all the time.”

“Favourite scent?” (Is it telling that she goes right over that happiness thing? He doesn’t know.)

“Vanilla,” he says, too quickly to stop himself and hopes she doesn’t notice (because that’s her body lotion scent and it’s what she smells like in the crook of her neck which he kinda wants to spend more and more of his time in recently.

“Favourite taste?” She moves on, without missing a beat. _Phew._

“Um, angel food cake?” (He doesn’t say “you” by a hair.)

 

“Favorite sound?”

“Oh,” he says, stopping, and this throws him for a loop because he has no idea. “I’ve never in my life thought about this.”

“Don’t think,” she says. “ _Feel._ ”

“That’s a piece of advice, eh?” He jokes and she answers with a smack on his arm because they both know that when it comes to thinking vs. feeling, it’s not _Scott_ who needs to listen to his heart a little more often.

“So?” She hurries him.

“I need to think about this,” he tells her.

“But then it’s not spitfire anymore.” She’s pouting.

“We’ll live,” he promises her and runs through the rolodex of sounds archived in his head and lands on two, debating which one to tell her. In the end, he goes with the one pertaining to her, just to see what she’ll say. “Oh, you know this. I didn’t know it was my _favourite_ sound but I’ve just decided it is.”

“Now I’m curious.”

“Your laugh-cry-thing,” he reveals. “What you do when you’re really happy about a skate where you laugh and cry at the same time, that’s the best. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.”

 

Tessa gets kind of quiet beside him and when she hasn’t said anything in a moment, he turns his head to her. Outside the night sky is pitch dark and no one is on the road save for them. They’ll be home soon.

“What?” He asks her. “Wrong answer?”

She’s smiling that unreadable Tessa-Smile but her eyes are dancing.

“No, I like it,” she says. “That’s really sweet.”

“I’ll do anything to get that sound back,” he says, completely sincere. “We’ll get that Gold.”

“I know,” she says and then she puts her hand on his where it rests between them. “That’s really so sweet of you to say.”

 

“I’m not just saying it,” he tells her before he can stop himself. “When I know you’re happy, that’s the best.”

“Me too,” she says, accompanied with a squeeze of his hand before taking hers back again.

“God knows it took us a while,” he says and he doesn’t have to explain to her what they’ve been through. It’s all there in the car between them. The distance, the heartbreak, the jealousy but also the blind hope and faith in their friendship that had prevailed; the simple fact that they were on six days of training a week for another Olympics after they’d tried for a year to get away from each other. There are multitudes contained in this short sentence and he’s certain that they both feel the same about it.

 

He remembers in a flash how in the summer of the year before he’d been drunk literally every other day, spending way too much time in bars, trying to cramp his entire eighteen-year-old life into his mid-twenties, drinking too much and talking too loud. She had only been a part of the periphery back then, a shadow of a past he wanted to shake, barely more than someone he’d used to know once (there were a number of reasons for that, mind you, and very few of those his fault, actually).

 

During that time, the only grip on reality he’d had was his then-girlfriend Kaitlyn, bless her soul. She’d been patient and understanding and funny and kind to him. At the time, he had enjoyed being with her because in so many ways, she was the complete opposite of Tessa. Outgoing, loud and brash at certain times, not mincing words or emotions, just straight up, no-bullshit, no-compromises, bad-ass and fun.

 

What you saw was what you got with her and that was nice. It was also nice that she let him go off on his own and tear his life to shreds at his own pleasure really, because that was how she’d gotten to know him: slightly off the rails and always ready to “have a good time.” She let him do his thing and was still always there for the comedown. Tessa, meanwhile, occasionally texted him, asking if everything was alright and that his mother was worried (And really? They came to Tessa for that?!). When they saw each other there was always this hesitation seeping into everything, like the moment before you were going to say something but then didn’t. That had been the most prominent theme in that dark time after Sochi where they didn’t really talk: Tessa wanting to say something (“Sorry, I broke your heart, Scott”?!) and then never doing it. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have listened anyway but he kind of still waited, all that time, to hear it.

 

Once she did finally say _something_ , he had drunken away most of his Silver money and at the rear end of that had somehow managed to drag himself out of the pit (still, thanks mostly to Kaitlyn and some semblance of common sense coming back to him) and it was really just Tessa’s acknowledgement of the fact that she hadn’t been innocent in his whole brief fall from sanity and stability.

“You look better,” she had said before a Stars on Ice show one day. “It seems like you found something. Does that make sense? Like you were looking for something and now you found it.”

“I don’t know about that,” he’d told her honestly.

“But I do,” she had insisted. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t more help there.”

“What?” He had asked, incredulously.

 

“Come on Scott, you were _struggling_ ,” she told him. “And I knew, I saw it. But I didn’t know how to do anything about it. I thought you didn’t want me to, because of...you know...so I didn’t. You did this all by yourself. And I guess I thought I would’ve needed to be there for the...restoration but I didn’t know how. But either way...you didn’t need me at all. And that’s great. Really, this is important. That we don’t need each other to function after all. I didn’t know that before...but I wanted to. It’s good to know now.”

“I’ll always need you,” he’d said simply.

“No you won’t, you don’t,” she reiterated. “But that’s a good thing.”

“Tess,” he’d said and leaned forward, closer to where she’d been. “You’re my touchstone. No matter what else is going on. My family and you, that’s the people I wanna make proud at the end of the day. No matter what has happened between us.”

“You _do_ make me proud,” she had said, her hand finding his, eyes open and honest. “I’m always proud of you. Every single day.”

 

He thinks of all this as they sit there in the car together and it feels like a million years ago already. He has a hard time piecing together when they had clicked back into who they were now. He only knows that once they had it again, he’d realised just how much he’d missed it. How much he had missed _her._ Now, it’s a lot to process, what they are to each other at any given moment, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. (And no matter what had happened two years ago and no matter what they’d agreed on in the Fall, _they_ are firmly back on the table, even if he has no idea how or where that could go and neither of them openly acknowledges it yet.)

 

Tessa, probably going over that same time in her head, leaves the loaded moment as-is and doesn’t say any more about it. Eventually Scott thinks of something menial to talk about instead and they pass the time for the rest of the way until he drops her off at home. She locks her car once they’re outside and he’s already unlocked his standing there in her driveway and they stand in front of her house and hug briefly.

“Thank you for the lift,” she tells him.

“Thanks for letting me drive that fancy new car,” he says.

“My car thanks _you_ ,” she laughs and winks. “It’s better for the engine to have it go a little over the speed limit from time to time.”

“I’m good for going over speed limits,” he says. “If not for much else.”

“Scott.” She voices the same exasperation at this crack at himself he always gets out of her recently (and potentially he might have made it only to inspire this reaction).

 

She says goodnight, hugs him again, and he kisses her cheek because he can’t quite stop himself and when they break apart there’s something new and old in her eyes that he’s painfully aware of these last few months. It’s been there since that day in the pub in Scotland and it’s both exhilarating and a little scary. (It makes him solidly hope again, which he knows might be dangerous.)

“Sleep tight,” Scott says, shooing the thoughts, as per their goodnight-ritual.

 

It had started years ago, between Canton late night drop-offs, hotel hallways and yeah, some nights falling asleep in the same bed with butterfly kisses and entwined limbs.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” she says, following tradition.

“Boggie Woggie,” she finishes with a grin and a silly cooing voice, which is a fairly new addition from some animated musical movie they had watched at the end of last year. It had been a fairy-tale-style story that featured god-awful covers of old songs which Tessa had inevitably loved. He doesn’t remember why they started saying it, probably because it had cracked them up at the time and they’re stuck with it now.

“Boggie Woggie,” he echoes, rolling his eyes and smiles anyway.

 

He watches until her front door closes behind her and then drives himself home in his own car, humming, then singing one of those stupid songs from the movie under his breath.

“Oh, I'm never gonna be the same again, now I've seen the way it's got to end. Sweet dream, sweet dream. I got a strange magic, oh, what a strange magic. Oh, it's a strange magic. Got a strange magic.”

 

**PART II**

 

Five days later, they’re on a plane heading to Worlds in Boston, for one to scope out their competition for the following season and two to do some broadcasting for CBC, commenting on the event. They’re in high spirits, just being around the bustle of a World Championship again is invigorating and exhilarating. The smell of the rink, the noise of the crowd, the cameras, the lights, even the sequins on the floor of the mixed zone add up to that feeling of competition that Scott has missed more than he can say. As they set up for their first round of commentary with Scott Russell, Tessa fumbles with the collar of his jean shirt, trying to tuck it under his navy jacket (she had picked out both of these things for him when they went shopping for the gig. Well, she had pretty much picked out _everything_ he was going to wear, right down to his new pair of light blue fucking pyjama pants).

 

“Guys, we’ll be live in a minute,” Scott Russell tells them, a PA waving a powder brush across his cheeks and then doing the same to the other two.

Once they’re on air, Russell asks them about Worlds and then they go through the prepped bit on the short dance event that is happening for which they offer up their best sound-bites, about keeping nerves in check and delivering the technical aspects on point and all that. It all goes over pretty smoothly, even when Russell leaves them to their own devices for another segment.

 

Scott asks her what her favourite Worlds was, and she says Gothenburg, which he knew she was going to say because they’d both liked that one a lot for reasons.

“We were young and innocent,” he says, wistfully. (They hadn’t been. Well, young yes, innocent, not so much.)

“We were, weren’t we?” Tessa giggles anyway. (They’d certainly been a little stupid back then.) “I think that was one of the first times that that laugh-cry-thing…” She looks at him and he remembers their conversation in the car a week ago and gives a little imitation of her happy sobs for the cameras (but mostly for her though). “In the kiss and cry because I was so happy,” she finishes.

“So happy, yeah,” he repeats and then says that his favorite Worlds had been 2013 in London because of the hometown crowd (and because he was sleeping with her then and things hadn’t fallen apart over it yet. But that’s for him to know, for her to guess, and the cameras to never pick up on).

 

“Now, would you prefer to be the hunter or the hunted?” She asks and she hadn’t told him before that this was going to be the question she’d pick from the suggested ones (she’d said she’d surprise him, for a more genuine reaction). “Like, do you wanna go in as the underdog or do you wanna be defending a title?”

“Uh, ooh, both are fun,” he answers from the top of his head. “I think I prefer being the hunted? I think it’s more of a challenge, it’s a lot harder in my opinion.”

“It is,” she agrees.

“What about you?” He asks because for once they’re not playing her game and it’s encouraged to throw the question back at her.

 

“Oh, I’m the opposite,” she says. “I kinda like having something to chase.”

“Kinda like–” he begins and then it computes what she’d said and he pulls a face while she keeps talking before he can stop himself from making weird scandalized noises.

“Having something to prove,” Tessa says while he looks at the camera like he’s on The Office and wiggles his damn eyebrows and they both laugh at the innuendo.

“I guess that’s why we make a good team,” he says and it’s good really, that she lets no time go to waste before firing the next question at him after, because that might’ve been revealing just a little bit too much about their past, the whole nineteen years of it.

 

She asks him about how it feels to be watching as opposed to being on the ice today and he makes up some bullshit about how it’s just a little bit weird and he’s happy to support the skaters (when really they’re both inches away from stealing some skates and getting out there themselves, barely rudimentary programs be damned). But in the end, they do know they have a little ways to go still until they can get back onto competitive ice. Once they do though, they’re gonna make it pretty hard for some of those teams to remain where they are right now (mostly Gabi and Guillaume who apparently get level fours for breathing,  and won’t it be fun to beat the ISU at their tried game of picking favourites?).

 

When they talked to PJ Kwon earlier on the same day, Scott had said his favorite Worlds program was Umbrellas and Tessa threw Waltz Triste in the mix, but mostly they had talked about Carmen, which might’ve been a good thing because PJ had unknowingly made him look very good when she told Tessa that at the time, Scott had told her in private that he thought Tessa would go on to be the ultimate Carmen. Tessa hadn’t known that and her reaction had been genuine; her whole body straightening and face lighting up and he had been embarrassed but fondly so.

 

“Oh, wow,” Tessa had said and he’d turned to gauge her reaction further. He couldn’t help but grin and run his hand over her back and inevitably Tessa had picked the program apart, commenting on unreached potential and he had nodded along but also added: “Still, the look in your eyes at the end of the program still scares me when I watch the tape, like…” And he had mimicked her stern glare, thinking that “scares him” was really not the right word for it after all. Whenever he watched that program back on youtube (for reasons), that last moment still took his breath away and God, he kind of wants that time back.

 

Not that it had been incredibly smart, feasible or profitable for them in hindsight but at the time, sneaking into her house that night after Worlds and putting his hands and mouth on every bit of her he could reach still feels like the weird pinnacle of his life. That moment where he’d been happy with their skate (if fucking angry with the result but whatever, they were united, that night at least, the two of them against the rest of the world) and happy with her in his arms (it was the night he admitted to himself that after Sochi, he might need a break from skating but he wanted Tessa forever)...it had been a high he hadn’t reached since.

 

“What are you thinking about?” She asks him over dinner at their Boston hotel’s restaurant at the end of the first day of their Worlds broadcasting stint.

“Nothing in particular,” he says. “Kaitlyn and Andrew.”

“Oh yeah,” Tessa agrees. “I don’t know why they’re not getting better scores.”

“Cause they’re not French,” Scott says easily and Tessa grunts. “And the song is chewed out twenty times over. Plus, they’re trying a bit too hard, chemistry-wise. No amount of teeth can convince people that the sexiest thing going on between you two isn't doing your taxes together.”

Tessa guffaws at that but quickly reigns herself in and shoots him a disapproving glance. “Don’t be mean, Scott.” She takes a sip from her wine, a glint in her green eyes (her floral blouse really brings out the colour in them quite nicely) and adds: “Not everybody can be us.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We’re not trying as hard, right?”

“When have we _ever_ tried, really?” She asks and puts her glass down. “We always had something real. On the ice, at least.”

“That we did,” he says and he’s pretty suddenly not very hungry anymore.

 

He could steer the conversation somewhere more serious now, somewhere more important and about off-ice things that loom larger over them every day but they’d said they wouldn’t and so he doesn’t. He just smiles and drinks from his wine and let’s the moment linger there, keeping his eyes on hers and pushes through the tension.

“Now _there’s_ that conversation to be had,” she says because she’s braver than him by a mile. And maybe because she too has lost count of those moments recently and has decided it’s time to face the music now.

“Didn’t we have that conversation before?” He asks her still.

“In retrospect, yeah,” she tells him. “Not about now.”

“Technically we did,” he says. “Under professional supervision, too.”

 

Earlier in the year, upon their first session with their new mental prep coach Jean Francois, they had given him the short version of their very long and very confusing relationship history, which basically had ended with “So Scott is single now and Tessa is single and that is a likely complicated set of circumstances and we have a pretty poor track record of staying away from each other when that happens and then it messes things up.”

 

They had not really discussed the implications or how they made them feel because they’d started off on the same page about not going down that road again, about trying to colour within the lines for once in their lives and focus only on the skating and also the mending of their relationship which had taken a beating in the year following Sochi. So the funny business had been taken off the table a while ago (meaning the sex, they never even addressed anything beyond physical attraction for whatever reason). It was just that now Scott was evidently struggling and Tessa knew and because she was a damn psychology major, she had to call him out on it.

 

“Scott,” she says merely and he understands. She’s saying “That was four months ago and things feel different, we should probably address that.”

“Is that really a good idea?” He asks, referring to her subtext-question.

And mind you, it’s not the first time since that first session that they have talked through past confusions but she has never expressed interest in investigating the current state of affairs before.

 

Going over past misgivings usually started simple enough: mostly in therapy, they would unearth understandable grudges on Tessa’s part about Scott not believing her when she told him Marina was no longer looking out for them before Sochi, them never really working through the fact that they’d slept together on and off for the better part of the past decade, and never really acknowledging what that meant. Scott’s problems with Tessa’s tendency not to say in blunt terms what bothers her, favouring diplomacy when he finds too many chances for error in those miscommunications. This had one day led to him saying, “You never told me what you really want.” They had recognised immediately how that sentence could not be unpacked in the last five minutes of their session and so they’d tabled it for later.

 

Scott thought “later” might have come on an unusually warm late February evening when a bad practice bubbled into an argument over Scott cooking dinner in her kitchen.

“Just say what you want, T,” he said impatiently and she groaned in frustration.

“I don’t care, do it how you wanna do it,” she sighed. “It’s just a casserole, it’s not that big a deal.”

“It _is_ if it ends up with you going ‘I told you to pre-cook the noodles’ with that _face_ ,” he snapped and she looked like she couldn’t believe they were really arguing about this.

“Well, one should usually pre-cook the noodles,” she told him with a noncommittal shrug and it was a little bit ridiculous that she of all people wanted to school him about _cooking._

“But they’ll cook in the sauce!” He repeated for the third time since they’d started bickering. “But if you _insist_ , I’ll pre-cook them. It’ll just be another hour until we eat then.”

 

“I really don’t care, Scott,” she breathed, pinching the bridge of her nose, obviously trying hard to keep her voice level. “I’ll eat them _half-raw_ too.”

“Jesus!” He exclaimed and smacked the wooden spoon he’d been holding hard onto the counter. “See, you keep doing this! You obviously want them pre-cooked, why can’t you just say so?”

“Because I don’t want to argue with you,” she replied.

“We’re arguing anyway,” he said, gesturing between them as if that was necessary to illustrate his point. “Just tell me what you want from me and I’ll do it.”

 

And that’s when there’d been bristle of something in the air between them. It was in the flicker in his eyes when he said it, in the slight tremble of his voice and the sense of recognition passing over her features, wiping off the sternness which had painted it in exasperation before and leaving brief hesitation. Instead of answering him immediately, Tessa had walked to her cabinet, got out two big wine glasses, filled them with the open red generously and set one of them before him.

“Put the damn noodles on the stove, we’re having a conversation now.”

 

He begrudgingly did and by the time the water started to slowly boil, they had sat down on the couch at a healthy distance from each other and it was Tessa unsurprisingly who gathered her bearings first.

“I’ve spent my whole life trying to work myself around your moods, Scott, you can’t suddenly expect me to order you around like that hasn’t blown up in my face a million times before.”

 

“I don’t want you to order me around,” he said.

“I _know_ ,” she said and gestured toward the kitchen. “Hence…”

“I wanted you to be honest about what you want from me,” he told her, deftly ignoring her throw-in since it was definitely not about the noodles anymore. Tessa took a sip from her wine to steady herself.

“I was struggling with that. I _am_ struggling with that,” she said, a therapy phrase, a starting point.

“Why?” He asked although he thought knew the answer.

“Same reason you were struggling to be honest about what you wanted from _me_ ,” she threw it back at him, unwilling to move an inch if he wasn’t going to come with her.

“I want you to trust me,” he said. “I want you to trust me that I’m working on myself to be better this time.”

“I do,” she said.

“But you’re holding back,” he insisted.

“So are you,” she remained.

 

They never specified what exactly they were holding back from and that had pretty much effectively ended that discussion, pinned again for a later day. Maybe that day is now, at dinner in Boston at Worlds, the echo of his words still hanging in the air between them: “Is that really a good idea?”

 

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” she says honestly and puts down the cutlery on her plate to signal that she’s done with her meal. “But I think it’s time. What do you say, we take this bottle to go and continue this conversation in my room.”

“That sounds unwise...for the conversation bit,” he tells her and it’s only half a joke. She rolls her eyes.

“I’m not coming on to you,” she tells him. “We’ll just talk this out, no funny business.”

“No funny business,” he echoes and that’s how they wind up on her bed with that open wine and another from the minibar, drinking straight from the bottle because apparently they both need a little liquid courage.

 

(He has no idea how or why this is happening now, really...maybe it’s the fact that they’re away from home and everything feels a little bit theoretical and unreal? It’s a lot but it’s also probably time? Yeah, it’s probably really time.)

 

Tessa has no idea how they ended up in her room but maybe with the amount of _moments_ they’d had recently, it’s the right time to have it out. Yes, once upon a time they’d promised they’d steer clear of any off-ice complications between them but by now it feels like they’re playing tug of war against themselves and it’s really quite silly. They need to at least address the tension there and keep on top of it. Their history proves in spades that leaving those feelings unspoken only leads to heartbreak and miscommunications and they can’t afford that, not with a comeback ahead of them.

 

“So we should talk about what we want from each other right now,” she begins, after taking a swig from the wine. “Not past tense. Present.”

“Yeah,” Scott agrees but doesn’t offer to go first. “So, what do you want?”

“What do _you_ want?” She parrots and it immediately feels like they have been at this impasse a million times before. It’s the “you hang up first-no you” from hell, or a different circle of hell anyway.

 

They stare each other down for a minute there and then Scott groans, pinches his eyes close and then looks firmly out of the window before he takes a deep breath to brace himself, like he does before a big skate.

“You know what I want,” he says finally and she thinks she knows but he still hasn’t _said_ it.

“I really don’t,” she tells him (possibly, definitely lying) and he almost, _almost_ rolls his eyes.

“Tess, I don’t even care, I’m done playing games,” he says earnestly, and snaps his head back to her. His eyes are dark, causing her chest to wind itself into a tight knot, her breath becoming dangerously shallow. “God damn it, I’ll say it. But you gotta be ready to hear it.”

 

Tessa remains completely still, scarcely daring to breathe at all now. She looks at him, tries to unravel her walls for him and hopes that he sees. He inhales deeply and she thinks he does. (How did this happen again, is this happening? Should this happen?)

“I want you,” he says then, without pomp or spectacle. “I want to _be_ with you.”

 

And there it is.

 

_Okay._

 

Somehow, Tessa can’t help the smile. She knows she should feel probably a little more panicked and worried and should try and reign him in and convince him that it’s not the time, that they shouldn’t risk it, that they’re still competing, that their friendship should remain what it is but she can’t. She can’t even say anything. All she can do is smile and try to keep her chest from heaving too hard. Realistically, she had known that this was coming, had known on some level since the day they shook hands on coming back or the day he told her he’d broken up with Kaitlyn at the latest. But then they’d decided to not engage with that possible direction of events and they had tried to stick to that. (Was there really ever a chance that this could’ve gone according to plan? She doubts it.)

 

“Say something?” He asks her then, trying to decipher her face, she can tell.

“Ah-huh,” is all she manages.

“Ah-huh, what?” His voice cracks upward, even softer than usual and he grabs her hand from her knee.

“I think I want that too,” she says, which gives him pause for a moment and his grip on her tightens slightly for just a second.

“You _think_?”

“I know,” she clarifies. “I...I want it. Have wanted it for a while...but I don’t know if it’s smart.”

“Me neither,” he admits. “But it’s different now, isn’t it?”

“I guess.” They look at each other for a moment, both processing the weight of what they’ve just revealed to each other, what they’d finally, after so many years had given words to. It’s been a long time coming but now that it’s out, it’s kind of strange.

 

The moment drags on and she feels very young and out of her element suddenly and it’s so weird that they have no idea how to navigate this. Heavens, they’ve known each other practically all their lives, they have done pretty much everything together that two people can do together but not this, never this. They have never fully, straight-out admitted to each other that they want a relationship, a romantic relationship. That they want to pull out all the stops and go for it. And they don’t even know if it’s the best way forward. They need to talk about that.

 

She’s about to tell him as much when he scoots closer to her, close enough to touch and puts his hand on her neck, tracing her chin with his thumb absent-mindedly.

“Tess, I’m gonna kiss you now, okay?” He asks her and looks ready to stop in his tracks if she should so much as lift an eyebrow but she just nods, instantly thoughtless and with her eyes falling to his lips and then closing.

 

They’ve done this before. Lots of times. She knows that his lips are soft, knows the pressure behind them, knows how he tilts his head to get closer. She knows the way he pulls her in, gently sweeps his tongue over her upper lip to make her open her mouth to him. He tastes like sunshine. She’d somehow forgotten _that._ It’s very nice.

 

Scott can’t quite connect to his body as he kisses her, which is weird because at the same time he feels like he’s never been quite this at home in his bones in years. Wrapping her up in his arms is second nature but kissing her while doing it after such a long time is blowing his mind a bit. The fact that he is kissing her now when for months and months he’d tried so very hard not to, is pretty insane. His desire for her even takes a bit of a backseat in the face of contemplating that and he’s still processing when they break apart for some air. Tessa’s hands travel up his chest to settle clutching the collar of his shirt and she touches her forehead against his, breathing deeply.

“We should,” she swallows, “take this slow.”

 

**PART III**

 

He nods softly against her forehead. She’s right, it’s best to keep their heads (but he doesn’t really want to, he wants more kissing). “Maybe, yeah. It’s a…big change.”

“We should talk about it,” she says.

“We really should.” He snakes his fingers higher up her scalp and when she moans just a little, the sound hits him squarely in the chest and then travels like lightning to his middle, calling his blood down to report for duty.

“Scott,” she drawles in protest but leans closer into his touch all the same.

“Can I just kiss you again, real quick?” He asks and she lets him put his lips on hers again.

 

But because he’s greedy and she’s right there and going pliant in his arms, he moves on to her jaw and neck eventually, mouthing along her ear and below and this is really his favourite spot on the planet, gosh darn it. By now, Tessa’s grabbing onto his hair like a mad person and there are more of those little sounds from her throat that make his pants very tight suddenly and he tries to get himself to stop because they should really talk first, maybe, probably, but it’s so hard (a lot of things are hard right now).

For the record, it’s Tessa who starts unbuttoning his shirt and once she has it off of him, he stops her roaming hands on his body and holds her wrists, abandoning her pulse point that he’d been giving some close attention to and tilts his head at her.

“Talk after?” He asks her and she looks barely coherent anyway.

“Yeah, what the hell,” she says and it’s music to his ears.

They have been here before too. But something tells him that this time, they really will talk after. And anyway, things are different now. She wants this to be more, God knows he does too. They both do. For real this time.

 

So he stands up, shedding his undershirt while she fumbles with his belt buckle and the buttons on his pants and he strips out of his bottoms while she pries her blouse and bra off over her head.

“Look at me,” he says softly once she’s done and she looks up at him, then straight ahead at _him_ and smirks.

“It’s been a while,” she grins and then takes him in her hands without prompting and Scott draws in a sharp breath. “Hi, there.”

He can’t help but laugh but that dies in his throat pretty quickly as she starts pumping her fist up and down, glancing up at him like sin. When she closes his mouth around him, he nearly collapses and has to grab her by the hair to keep standing upright.

 

He stops her just short of coming all over her face and has to physically restrain her from going back in for the kill and the only way to do that really is to grab her by the waist and lift her, yank her pants down and turn her over so she sits on the bed on her knees and hands, her backside facing him. He smooths his hand down her back to make her arch her upper body down into the mattress. She follows his positioning of her, ever trusting and he keeps his palms on her ass up high as he bends down, a nice back bend there that she would be proud of if she could see it. When he puts his mouth on her, she yelps and to say he’d missed doing this would be a crass understatement. She curses heavily and God, he’s glad he gets to make her do that again.

 

He puts all his grit to it, trying to recall just how she’d liked it a million years ago and he gets back into the groove fairly quickly. He thinks he does, at least, judging by the sounds she makes. A few minutes in, he has to use one of his own hands to keep a tight grip on himself to keep from coming just by listening to her. A few minutes later, she tells him to “Now, Scott, right now,” and he obeys, letting off of her so she can lie down on her back and he can crawl on top of her. He hovers over her a second, checking back in but she just grins, blissed out and weak with wanting him and if that isn’t the best feeling in the world?

 

“You sure, T?” He asks her, bringing a hand to her face to trace the line of her jaw tenderly.

“Yes,” she says.

“I love you,” he tells her, unabashedly. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” she answers. “I love you too.”

 

And then all guards are pretty much down. Honestly, Scott has no idea how he lasts as long as he does, only that it takes quite a few impromptu position changes and it’s a good thing they’ve got so many lifts into their latest training sessions because some of those work actually pretty well to transition from one to the other (and if Marie-France knew they were using her lift-expertise to this very end, she’d probably scream).

 

He sinks into her, body and soul and once upon a time he had literally laughed when people said that they cried from making love but he’s honestly not too far off. It’s amazing, in old ways that he knew were going to be there (the way their bodies fit together, the way they effortlessly mold and bend and shape themselves into the other person because that’s what they learned, the way her fingertips dig into his flesh) but also in new ways that surprise him (she tastes different now somehow, like confidence and intoxication, they’re louder now, together, vocalising easily now that they don’t have to hide from anyone – and for the first time she looks at him like he might not up and leave her after, not that he had so much in the past but now it seems like she trusts him fully with her heart. He can’t say what that means to him.)

 

At the height of it, he has her spread open under him, her left leg over his shoulder, the other wrapped around his torso and they’re chasing peaks, her arching her back, him pushing her into the mattress. He gives it all he has, fast, hard and a little bit unhinged and she loves every second of it (she’ll have bruises on her thighs but he remembers that she likes those a lot). He waits for her to finish but only by a hair and when he comes, he sees stars. Heavens, he’s missed this. With a whomp, he collapses onto her, lingers for a bit before getting rid of the condom and cleaning himself up while she goes to the bathroom. She comes back with confident strides, in all her flushed naked glory and if he hadn’t cried during sex, now he could. She’s magnificent, truly.

 

She waits for him to settle back down with her and opens her arms. He has no false pride about folding himself into her embrace, no issue putting his head on her chest and shoulder and letting her play with his hair as if he was “the woman,” he doesn’t care about that because it’s fucking nice to be held and he feels safe there.

“So that was even better than I remembered,” Tessa whispers eventually and he can’t help the proud smirk that creeps on his face. She takes a breath to say something more, making his head rise on her chest but he cuts her off.

“Yes, we’ll talk about it,” he says. “Just give me a minute. I can’t think straight right now. You fucking obliterated me.”

She giggles, he likes the sound, likes how it bubbles in her ribcage and vibrates through his skull. He ponders that as he slowly comes back to himself but he can’t quite touch the ground, like he’s floating on clouds. It’s pretty fucking nice this way, though.

 

“Okay,” he says eventually, rolls off of her so he can lie on his side, propped up on his elbow and look at her. “Do you wanna be really analytical about it or should we take this from the heart?”

She laughs. “How about we try both?”

“So what does your heart say, Tessa Virtue?” He asks her, following her lead.

“My heart says I love you,” she answers bluntly and he can’t help his pulse drumming through his body like it’s a techno club. “My heart says I want to stay in this bed with you forever.”

“That’s funny because my heart says the same thing,” he tells her and they grin. “Now, what does that head say?” And Tessa makes a face, like he knew she would.

“That head…,” she starts and scrunches up her mouth into a squiggly line. “That head says we have mountains of baggage between us and we’ve never managed to have a fully functioning romantic relationship with _anybody._ So the odds are kinda stacked against our favour.”

 

He studies her with a bit of scepticism but takes a moment before he addresses her concerns (just like he’s learned in therapy: process first, react later), then: “Regarding the functioning relationship thing there, don’t you think that’s kinda because we’ve been in and out of love with each other for most our lives? I know I was in love with you at least a third of the time of any relationship I’ve ever been in and they all ended because of it, too. So if we’re together, that would take that factor pretty much out of the equation, eh?”

Scott watches her process in real time and obviously it takes a while.

“I didn’t want your relationships failing because of me,” she lands on, eventually.

“Why did _your_ relationships fail, T?” He asks her, full well knowing the answer. So surely that he isn’t the least bit surprised when she just shrugs a “fair enough”-shrug. “So, I’d say we’re even.”

 

“But is that a good enough reason to be together?” Tessa challenges and he is aware that she’s playing devil’s advocate. It’s good though, they need that. “That we’ve apparently ruined each other for everybody else?”

“I think that’s a little bleak way of looking at it,” he tells her, rolling onto his stomach and she mirrors the action. “Have you ever thought that maybe it was meant to be?”

She rolls her eyes but with affection. “You’re such a sap.”

“But I’m serious,” he says. “After all the shit we’ve been through, after all the ways we’ve hurt each other, we still ended up right here. I’ve known you pretty much all your life and I’m still crazy about you, you’re still the one person I wanna see every day.” She looks at her hands for a while and he tilts his head. “This is the part where you say you feel the same way.”

“I do,” she says. “Of course I do. It’s just...huge. It’s a huge thing, no?”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “But when have things not have been huge with us?”

 

“What if we mess it up?” And that’s the crux of things. Because if they do this, they’re throwing all that they are into the balance, it all goes on the line and that’s frankly scary, panic-inducing even. But somehow he doesn’t have it in him to be afraid now, possibly because his body is singing with the memory of being wrapped up in her for the better part of the last hour.

“What if we don’t?” He asks. “But seriously, who is better equipped to deal with crap in a relationship than us? We’re going on what, ten years of marriage counselling? We can do this, we can _communicate._ I’ve seen people get married who can’t even hold a proper conversation. We’ve been kicking ass at this most of the time.”

“Not so much last year,” she throws in.

“Last year I was a fucking mess,” he says. “Mostly because I wasn’t talking to you.”

“We’ve also never really talked about _this_ ,” she says, indicating their situation; both naked under crumpled sheets, the room smelling like sex and new beginnings. “Before.”

“We’re talking now,” he shrugs. “But speaking of talking, what is this conversation? Is it ‘Are we gonna do this?’ or “How are we going to do it?’ Just so I can manage my expectations.”

“What do you think it should be?” She asks him back. He shakes his head.

“Nope,” he says. “I asked first. Also you know what I want this to be.”

“I want to know how we’re going to do it, practically,” she says and he breathes a sigh of relief. Right answer. “How are we going to handle it? If maybe it isn’t what we thought it would be, if maybe we get sick of each other, if maybe we fight and we have to skate the next day?”

 

“We’ve always skated,” he reminds her. “Even when we couldn’t stand the sight of each other. I don’t think that much will change, honestly. And we’ve done all this before. We’ve skated, we’ve fought, we’ve slept together, we just never made it...official or whatever. We never tried to be together because of some arbitrary _rules._ And yeah, they might’ve been good to have when we were younger because I would’ve probably gotten you pregnant at twenty and that would’ve been our career for you but we’re older now. I got my shit together...somewhat. And you always had your shit together anyway. So what do we gain by limiting ourselves? After Sochi, I thought I was gonna go for all the things I couldn’t go after before but I always drew the line at you. Why? Because of the sex? Come on, T. We’ve practically been in a relationship for years. We just always treated the sex like some dirty secret that we should be ashamed of. I don’t want that anymore, do you?”

 

“No,” she says. “I like sleeping with you. I’ve always liked sleeping with you.”

“So there’s that,” he says (the proud smirk right back in place, he can’t help it). “It doesn’t have to be this big of a deal. We’re not the first partners in the world to start a romantic relationship. I mean look at Marie and Patch. They’ve been doing alright.”

“They have, haven’t they?” Her eyes are so bright and hopeful it kills him and brings him right back to life.

“Yeah,” he says and dips his head down to kiss her shoulder. “So let’s just try not to be afraid, okay? It’s us, T. It’s just us.”

“So we’ll just...keep doing this and everything else stays pretty much the same?” She asks him.

 

“Pretty much,” he says. “We’ll take things slow, see how much space we need, see how much time we can make for this _whole_ thing.” He runs his hand down her bare back to illustrate his point, enjoying her shiver at the touch. “We’ll talk it through in therapy, take stock of things.” He leans over a little more, so he can pepper some more kisses onto her skin at his pleasure (he wants this conversation, he really does, but she’s also delicious and he wants her too). “We’ll keep the lines open.” Maybe that next kiss is more of a lick and maybe she sighs a little and maybe he turns around to slot himself against her side and kiss her skin, pulls her in, getting rid of the blanket they’re under and makes sure she feels him pressed against her thigh. “We’ll keep it between us until we’re ready to tell people.” Tessa turns to her side and he can see her struggle to listen to him written on her face.

 

“We’ll keep it off the ice, no couple stuff in training.” She scoots closer, puts her leg over his hips. “No skating talk in the bedroom.” He’s struggling now too, even more so when she closes her hand around him, shifts and aligns them. He wants to argue that he’s not got a condom on but she doesn’t care for now and he’s not yet fully complaining. “Compartmentalize.” He whispers and thrusts, his brow furrowing from trying to contain himself. Her eyes roll back a little. “Keep...uh...keep things simple.” He’s going slow, aiming for leisurely, holds on to her hips because it’s a weird angle and he could slip out every moment (and that would be a shame). She stares at him, open mouthed and then licks her lips in a way that makes him even harder inside her. “We’re great at this talking thing,” he mutters under his breath and she grins.

 

She stops grinning when he flips them so she winds up straddling him, the new position has her sink down deeper and he moans, digging his fingers hard into her thighs.

“Uh, we should get a condom. Pushing our luck here,” he says although the last thing he wants is to stop this right now.

“Still on the pill,” she says merely and rolls her hips into him (God Fucking Dammit). “S’fine.”

He gurgles something in response and bucks his groin up, suits him perfectly. “I’ll never get anymore work done ever.”

“You’re going to be bad for business, I can tell,” she says.

“What movie is that?” He asks her with what little hold on his brain he still possesses as she starts moving her pelvis in circles up and down on him.

“Moulin Rouge,” she replies.

“Right,” he says and there’s a thought. “I think this might just be...ah, fuck, Tessa...might just be _great_ for business.”

He runs his hands up to her arms and then pulls her down so he can kiss her and then mumble into her mouth: “This is good, this is _right._ ”

She hums and then picks up the pace and then there’s no more room in his head for coherent thought, only variations of _yes_ , _more_ , _faster, deeper, right there, yes_ and _please._

 

How they make it out of bed next morning, he doesn’t really know. Only that it’s early and he can’t drag out what he does to her under the warm spray of the shower any longer than ten minutes because they have to get dressed and ready and meet PJ in her hotel for another interview and have the CBS broadcasting stuff for the Free Dance event coming up. He thinks through every single outing that day that it must be obvious that something happened between them, the way Tessa’s eyes are glued to his face whenever he talks, the way he angles his body towards her because it’s screaming to get closer and he winds up actively trying to look and turn away from her but fails pretty much half the time.

 

They get through until lunch before they find a deserted corner in the stadium to make out for two hot minutes and then subsequently panic because Scott has her lipstick all over his mouth. They fix it though and when they get back to the TV people nobody is any the wiser. Nobody seems to notice how Tessa hovers around him after or how the watch the Free Dance event with their shoulders brushing constantly, his hand searching her knee time and again and nobody hears him whisper “Let’s get out of here quickly,” just before the crew sets up for their last soundbite of the night while below, the medal ceremony begins.

 

Tessa agrees fervently with his suggestion of leaving soon and they barely say hello and goodbye to the “Gadbeoisie” before getting into the black car CBC has called for them. Thankfully, the ride to the hotel is a short one and also, thankfully, there is no one in the elevator with them so that Tessa can run him into the cabin wall and kiss him, to hell with her lipstick. Scott chuckles into her mouth, prying her away from him when the elevator dings the announcement of arrival to their floor.

“I feel like I’m making out with a politician when you look like that,” he tells her, referencing her smart baby blue blazer and she supposes he’s right.

“You want me to take it off?” She asks him coyly as the doors open and she’s glad that there is no one there to witness the filthy look he gives her that shoots straight down to her core.

 

Needless to say she is out of her clothes in record time. He lets her take the lead this time, use him the way she likes and eats it up. She doesn’t remember him being like this often in the past. Usually, for all the ways Tessa on average led the way and set the tone in their business relationship, the two of them in bed had always been mostly “traditional,” if such a thing exists. Meaning that Scott was as per his nature the more crazed and passionate, demanding lover (endlessly caring and patient and generous, yes but also fully taking charge) and 90% of the time Tessa got a kick out of being a little (or sometimes a lot) submissive to him but sometimes, like now apparently, he had wanted her to take the reins and take what she wanted from him. It’s a good fit tonight because she’s been thinking about tearing him apart all day.

 

If she’s honest, she is still terrified of what it all means and how they are really going to make it work, this being together that feels so huge and final and definite, like yesterday night, somehow the rest of her life had begun, but having his head between her thighs working his magic, she can’t really touch the fear.

“You know what we should do?” He asks her suddenly when they’ve been at it for a while, lifting his head from down there and she wants to tell him to please shut up and keep his mouth on her instead but he won’t listen. “Bring Carmen back!”

“You said no skating talk in bed,” she huffs, feeling bereft now that he’s stopped kissing her. He soothes her pout with a hard lick and she’s momentarily appeased.

“Sorry. It just _sprung_ to my mind. For reasons,” he smirks, glancing at her spread open for his mouth. Tessa shivers.

“Hm, do you want me to think about _this_ whenever we do that lift?” She asks him and lifts up her hips just a bit in a callback to their old programs big move–her reward is another sweep of his tongue, intricate enough to make her keen and moan.

“I don’t know about you but I’ve always thought about this, ever since we could do it without killing ourselves,” he shrugs and adds, before getting back to work on her. “We could bring it back, is all I’m saying.”

 

They do bring it back. When they do the program in Geneva for ice legends, Scott has refined his latest habit of squishing his face against hers (or her neck whatever is closest) whenever at all possible during their time on ice which Tessa enjoys and thusly doesn’t point out that it’s definitely a bit of their romantic relationship slipping over onto the ice with them. Even if they said they wouldn’t do that. But it’s been almost a month since Boston and things are still changing and falling into place every day. And not changing and staying exactly as they were at the same time. It’s really quite remarkable.

 

Especially the fact that they’re skating better together than they possibly ever have. Which is likely mostly because they’re finally getting to functioning with the same mechanics in their movements and Tessa feels fully healthy for the first time in literal years...but maybe also a little bit because they’re not pining after each other at the rink anymore, trying to communicate too much personal turbulence and yeah, love in whatever form, through their skating (because it’s the only place they had been “allowed” to do that for the longest time). Their private, intimate “will-they-won’t-they”, which they had thought so long much of their on-ice chemistry relied on, had really always been a pretty big stumbling block in training, now that for the first time, she experiences their practices without it.

 

Even when they’d been sleeping together for longer periods before (like briefly before her first surgery or for a while during the Carmen season), there had never been that ease between them that is there now, that outspoken, acknowledged romantic love with a promise of “we are doing it right this time” that makes her fall into his arms on and off the ice with the trust in him at a level it had never reached before (which is saying a lot since at any point in their history she would have trusted him with her life, even the darkest times). Now, they finally see eye to eye about their feelings, their intentions. There are no others to contend with, no fear of rejection, no (or very few) reservations regarding their career. Because Scott had been right...they had not been gaining anything by keeping forcibly apart these last months and now that they aren’t trying that anymore they _have_ gained a world, a future. And the skating is going great. They are working. And they haven’t even started training full time at Gadbois yet. Everything is coming together because they finally got it together. It’s poetic in the most beautiful way.

 

**PART IV**

 

The second night they spend in Montreal, Scott has already abandoned his own bed in his own condo in the same building as hers (they thought it would be wise to have two seperate places for the sake of taking it slow) and she is sprawled out across his chest in her bed, drawing circles into his chest with her index finger.

“Scott?” She says eventually and he hums drowsily, indicating that he’s still somewhat awake enough to talk to. “I have a question.”

“Shoot, babe,” he murmurs.

“It’s about the past,” she says, maybe warning him. “Our past.”

“Hmm?” He hums again.

 

“I was watching back a couple of tapes, videos on youtube, the other day,” she tells him (it’d really been gifs on twitter on a stroll through their “tag” but she _doesn’t_ tell him that for some reason, maybe because she’d felt really strange reading those tweets and also gotten strangely addicted to it at the same time lately). “And the way you always looked at me...on the ice...I mean, I know what it looked like because I was there but I didn’t know what it _looked_ like, you know? You always looked...like you were struggling not to kiss me. Like you...loved me...every time.”

“So?” He asks when she doesn’t offer up her question for a couple of heartbeats.

“So, was that real?” She finally says. “Or was that make believe? Were you just doing your job?”

“Sometimes,” he says, a little more awake now. “A rare few times. I thought we already established that on the ice, we were mostly pretty real? Honestly, if I looked like I was struggling not to kiss you, I was probably struggling not to kiss you. That happened a lot. I don’t know, T, I always loved you. I think I was in love with you before I even knew what it was.”

 

“Do you remember Say It Right?” She asks.

“Tess, that was last year. Yes, I remember,” he huffs. “I wasn’t _that_ drunk all the time.”

“I didn’t see your face there,” she says. “When we did that wall bit. I saw it now.”

“That whole bit is a blur,” he admits. “I was definitely trying not to kiss you there, that much I remember.”

“I think you did, somewhere on my forehead,” she says. “A couple of times. But that look on your face. That was...it looked like you were in pain.”

“T, it was last year.” His voice drops almost to a whisper. “I _was_ in pain.”

“I’m sorry,” she says under her breath.

“Is this the moment?” He asks and she can hear his weary grin without having to look at his face. “Is this when you say ‘Sorry for breaking your heart, Scott’?”

“I never wanted to hurt you,” she says sincerely. “I just needed to…”

“Figure out who you were outside of this, I know,” he cuts in. “I get it. I wanted to get away from it all, too. I just thought I could do that and keep you, too.”

“You know, to be fair, and full disclosure, I died a little bit every time you mentioned Kaitlyn,” Tessa admits (and she’s been half-ashamed of this for two years now, so it’s a lot and she is glad to be facing his chest instead of anywhere where she could pick up any other reaction of his other than his heartbeat).

 

“I know,” he simply says. “I know you pretty well, baby. I’d thought I should move on. And you _did_ go right back to Ryan.”

“That wasn’t serious.”

“I know that, too,” he tells her. “It still pissed me off.”

“It was supposed to,” she admits.

“I know,” he repeats himself and she almost has to laugh. “It wasn’t hard to. I was jealous of every other guy you ever been with, too. I’ve been jealous about you the last ten years of my life, I think.”

Since they’re being honest, she decides to come clean as well (even though they are both very aware of all that’s being said but it’s good to say it still, just to have spoken it out loud once). “I was jealous of every last one of your girlfriends.”

“The crux of all of our problems was that we’ve _always_ loved each other, T,” he says and sounds very wise and very right. “But that was also always the reason why we came back swinging every time.”

“I think I needed to wrap my head around that.”  
“You and me both,” he says.

“Scott?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for breaking your heart.”

“I’m sorry for breaking yours, kiddo.”

 

Now, finally, she shifts her weight and turns so she has her arms on him and can prop herself up to look him in the eye. He studies her like she does him and their conversation briefly moves to the telepathic plain. He says _I’m glad that we figured it out_ and she echoes the sentiment and they smile at each other, like two tired but grateful generals at the end of a war. They made it out. And they won.

 

“Sheri is having a second wedding party in Ilderton at the end of the month,” he tells her after a while, changing the subject because for now, they’re all talked out of deep stuff.

“I know, she texted me,” Tessa says.

“So you’ll come?”

“Yeah, I was going to,” she replies. “If that’s alright.”

“Totally,” he grins. “I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go...together. Like _together-_ together. Tell our families? Because it’s been almost three months now...with us.”

“So, the trial-period is over, you mean?” She chuckles.

“Yeah...you can’t give me back now,” he winks, getting on board with her joke and adds dramatically mushy: “Signed, sealed, delivered, tested, approved of, _yours._ ”

“I’d like that,” she says and somehow, she’s not afraid of taking that step at all.

 

On June twenty-third, they fly to London from Toronto and Scott drives Tessa to her Mom’s cottage in a rental, says hi to Kate over a coffee and then heads on to his family. The second he’s out of the door, Kate locks her arms and gives her daughter a look.

“What’s going on with you two?” She asks inquisitively.

“Is it that obvious?” Tessa asks merely, which is as much of an answer as her mother needs. But still apparently too much, because she just stands there for a moment and stares at her.

“Three months,” Tessa says, anticipating the question. “We’re taking things very slow. We’re being careful.”

“You ought to be,” her mother cautions with a worrisome expression. “If this doesn’t work out it will kill you.”

 

“I know, Mom,” Tessa says. “But we’re good, great actually. We’re happy.”

“I can see that,” Kate nods and her features soften until they’re a smile (and maybe her eyes get a little watery, too). “That’s why I could tell. You’re glowing. You both are.”

Tessa can’t do much else but grin from ear to ear, happy to finally be able to talk about it with someone outside of Scott.

“But why now?” Her Mom asks. “What changed?”

“We did. Last year. Since Sochi, really,” Tessa muses. “It happened in Boston. We finally...talked about it, about what we wanted from each other and it turned out to be the same thing, finally. We didn’t see a strong enough reason to deny ourselves that.”

 

Kate nods, fondly, and by now tears have definitely gathered in the corner of her eyes which in turn makes Tessa almost cry as well. Her mother hugs her then and says into her ear: “I’m glad you two worked it out. You always did love him so very much. And you’re his whole world.”  
Tessa can’t help but laugh-cry a little then and only stops when they break apart and her mother has that mischievous look on her face she gets when she’s plotting something.  
“Please let me be around when you tell your siblings,” she swears Tessa in. “There’s a betting pool and I want to see who won.”

“Mom!” Tessa admonishes. “I hope you’re not part of that.”

“No,” she promises. “But just about everybody else. Alma isn’t either but I’m pretty sure Joe is.”

 

Alma and Joe, a couple kilometers down the road, welcome their youngest home with the same warm, unassuming warmth they always do and start catching him up on the giant Moir clan’s business as per usual. He doesn’t stop them, his news can wait. And they do until after dinner that night when he helps them load up the dishwasher.

“So, I’m bringing Tess to the wedding,” he announces over the clinking of cutlery, glasses and plates.

“Oh, how nice,” his mother smiles. “Sheri will be happy that she’s able to make it.”

 

“No, Mom, I mean…,” he tries again. “T and I, we’re coming together. We’re...together. Now.”

Alma puts down the dish-towel she was holding and Joe shifts into Scott’s field of view, a fiendish grin spreading on his father’s face.

“Excuse me while I make a phone call,” Joe grins.

“Dad, we’re keeping it private for now,” Scott warns, lest his father calls the one local journalist himself. “Just the families are supposed to know.”

“Gotcha,” his Dad says and stalks off, still grinning. His Mom, meanwhile, is still staring at him.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says, finally. “Took you long enough.”

Scott doesn’t wait to cross the floor to her and wrap her in a big, celebratory hug. It’s so nice to finally be able to tell her. “My heart is so full, Mom. This is _it._ ”

By then, his mother is crying onto the new shirt Tessa picked out for him.

 

The wedding itself is beautiful and by the time Scott takes Tessa to the dance floor by the hand, the entire party a) knows about them and b) knows that it’s a secret for the time being. And because they are the best family in the world, they keep that secret like champs (and will continue to do so in the many months to come). There is not a single photo uploaded onto social media accounts after the fact that even has a hint of Tessa. As far as the public is concerned she was never there and Scott loves that.

 

But not as much as he had loved dancing with her at that wedding, under fairy lights and lanterns, surrounded by his family, with his new one, his future, right there in his arms. He had twirled her easily, tried and trained and brought her back into a close handhold and put his cheek against hers, spinning slowly to the music.

“I think we’re doing pretty good,” he had said, close to her ear so only she can understand him and she nodded.

“I think we’re perfect,” Tessa said, her voice golden with affection.

“Excellent,” Scott corrected, using their newest mantra learned at Gadbois.

 

_There is no perfection, only excellence._

 

“No,” Tessa had insisted pointedly and he could feel her face contort into a grin next to his cheek. “We’re _perfect._ ”

  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it, thank you for reading! 
> 
> What's your thoughts on the head canons? I would love to hear your views on what/how it changed (if it did) ;)


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